Robby Krieger was 18 years old when he joined the Doors, the seminal psychedelic rock band known for their hard living and wild frontman Jim Morrison. Krieger, who grew up in LA and taught himself guitar as a teenager, wrote several of the band's best loved songs, including "Light My Fire". When Jim Morrison died in 1971, the band continued as a trio, finally splitting up in 1973, after which Krieger recorded several jazz guitar albums as the Robby Krieger Band. Now 66, Krieger continues to tour with Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek, performing the band's songs under the name Manzarek-Krieger, and he remains a fixture on magazine lists of the world's greatest guitarists.

MY INTRODUCTION TO ROCK'N' ROLL

This was the first rock'n'roll song I ever heard. My mum liked Frank Sinatra and stuff like that – which was fine but didn't really resonate with me. I was probably 10 years old, in my house where I grew up in the Pacific Palisades, California, and it just popped right out of the radio. I said "What's that? That's amazing!" And then I discovered Fats Domino and Little Richard and all kinds of stuff. It's the beat, mainly, and the amazing echo on the guitar. And Elvis Presley's voice – he sounded like he wasn't just crooning like a Frank Sinatra guy – he was into it. It made me jump.

THE SONG I ASSOCIATE WITH LSD

When I first started taking LSD I would listen to various things but this song sounded like Dylan was on acid too when he wrote it – I know what he's talking about exactly! I was in high school and I'd just started taking LSD and I already loved Bob Dylan, but when he came out with his own stuff it was mind-boggling to me. In that mood you have when you're kind of coming down from LSD, after you've had all the hallucinations, on the back end of it you feel this kind of peace, like you've discovered something.

THE SONG THAT DEFINES THE BLUES FOR ME

Crawling King Snake by John Lee Hooker (1949)

Once we'd put the Doors together we used to listen to a lot of stuff over at Ray's house. He had a collection of blues records and once again we were on acid – we were doing it all the time – and John Lee Hooker came on with "Crawling King Snake" and that really got to me. That song encapsulated the whole blues experience. I think it's his voice, the way he half sang, half talked. It just said to me: "I am the blues," and woke up a whole blues part of me. We even ended up covering "Crawling King Snake" on one of our records.

THE SONG THAT GOT ME INTO JAZZ

When I was getting into jazz I was looking for something to practise on guitar-wise, so I learnt Coltrane's solo on "Giant Steps". That to me was the ultimate jazz song. If you're a horn player and you can play that song perfectly then you know that guy's pretty good. This was after the Doors, when I did some solo albums that were jazz-based, which I'm still doing. This song is still part of my practice regimen today – I try to play it as fast as I can. I can't stand to do scales and stuff so I try to do something interesting. I'm still working on it.

THE SONG THAT REMINDS ME OF MY WIFE

Knock on Wood by Eddie Floyd (1966)

This was a song they played at a club where we used to perform in New York called Ondine's. Ondine's was our first New York gig and we played there for maybe five or six weeks. The first time we went back there they played "Knock on Wood" every night for the dancers and that's when I met my wife. I remember seeing her dancing to that song. I love it – it's a great 60s dance track. We got married when I was about 24 and we're still married. That doesn't happen very often.

THE RECORD THAT INFLUENCED MY GUITAR PLAYING

Evening Raga by Ravi Shankar (1968)

I listened to this even before I studied Indian music. Every evening when I went to bed I would put that raga on – it was relaxing. Anything Ravi Shankar plays is amazing. When I first listened to Indian music I'd never heard anything like it and it influenced my guitar playing. I went to his school, the Kinara school in LA, to learn sitar and I actually got to meet him for the first time about five years ago. We talked a bit and I told him about the song "The End" which is based on one of his ragas. He loved that. He was so nice. I mean a guy like that, I'm sure he's heard it all, but he was blown away by that.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME OF JIM

An American Prayer by Jim Morrison (1978)

One of my favourite albums that we did was called An American Prayer. Before he died, Jim spent a night recording his poetry, just speaking it. I'd heard all those words before from reading his poetry book but the way he read it was very melodic. And I said man, we could put music to that, that would be great. So we went in the studio and started putting music to these poems. Nobody else could have done it, because we knew his phrasing so well. One time, when we were recording the song "When the Music's Over", Jim was off on an acid trip somewhere and he didn't make it to the studio. So rather than blow off the whole day we said well let's just put the music down and we'll imagine him singing and then see if he can come in later and do the vocal. And we did it and it worked. Some day people are going to realise how good that album is.

The 40th anniversary reissue of the Doors' LA Woman is out now on Rhino/Warner Bros